Guyanese Diaspora organizations ask US Justice Dept to Investigate Guyana's alleged interference in US Midterm elections

MONTEGO BAY, November 10, 2022 -  The New York based Caribbean Guyana Institute for Democracy (GCID) says twenty one  United States based Guyanese organisations in the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut Tri-State area have asked the US Department of Justice and Congress to investigate whether Guyana’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Government may have sought to influence Tuesday’s US midterm elections in New York. 

Wiredja was unable to obtain a copy of the letter of complaint however, a media release from CGID said it was filed with the relevant authorities, and of particular interest was the New York state election for Attorney General which was contested by  the Democratic incumbent Letitia James who was challenged by Republican Michael Henry. 

Ms. James, who has been one of the few prosecutors to have successfully brought the disgraced former United States President Donald Trump before the courts, won re-election by a wide margin.

James, 64, made history when she took office in January 2019. She is the first Black woman elected to statewide office, the state’s first Black attorney general and the first woman elected to the post.

She began investigating Trump almost as soon as she took office, suing the Republican in September alleging he and his company misled banks and others about the value of his assets.

Last Sunday during a Guyanese town hall meeting in Brooklyn, New York, Ms James attracted the ire of Guyana's PPP administration, when she told the capacity crowd that she would seek support among her colleagues to petition the US government to investigate numerous complaints against Guyana’s People’s Progressive Party (PPP) regime. 

“I, along with my Democratic Attorneys General across the country, will be calling on the [United States] DOJ (Department of Justice) as well as the Biden administration to look into allegations that have been put forward this evening,” the AG said after hearing a litany of complaints and allegations against the Guyana government from Guyanese present at the meeting. 

The allegations were primarily about racial discrimination. However, Guyanese at the meeting also alleged that Guyana’s government uses the legal system to persecute political opponents even as Guyana is being mismanaged.

She pointed out that “I believe that Guyana needs strong democratic institutions, and I will defend that. And I will abhor any discrimination or racism of any people, particularly people from the African diaspora. We believe in the right to free speech, the right to journalists [having] free and fair ability to report whatever they seek, without any interruption.

“We believe that discrimination should be called out.  We believe that racism should be called out. We try to call out class struggles as well,” Ms James noted.

According to the CGID release “In the run up to Tuesday's midterm elections in the US, the PPP regime assisted Republicans, as well as joined with and provided false, misleading information to, Republicans in an effort to directly and deliberately target democrats and interfere in the elections in New York State, with the express intent to influence the outcome.”

In addition, “the PPP regime in Guyana has used hundreds of millions of Guyanese taxpayers money to hire Trump republican political consultants,” the GCID report said.

-30-